Beneath the plum tree: A Chinese culinary romance

In ancient China, scholars created their own “language of flowers”, also known as an expression of universal love. However, only a select few flowers have been praised and admired across generations: orchids, apricot blossoms, peach blossoms, lotuses, chrysanthemums, osmanthus, crabapple blossoms and daylilies — and at the top of the list is the plum blossom, symbolic of a noble character.

From planting and appreciating plum blossoms to making them the subject of poetry and paintings, the love for plum blossoms runs deep and enduring — so much so that one gets lost in their beauty, like Zhuangzi dreaming of a butterfly. Those whose admiration remains unsatisfied have even incorporated plum blossoms into dishes for a gastronomic delight.

Take, for instance, Song dynasty poet Yang Wanli’s poem Nocturnal Drinking While Eating Plum Blossoms with White Sugar (夜饮以白糖嚼梅花):

Snow-like plum blossoms are meant to be breathed in,
Dipped in honey, they taste fresh as frost.
Each flower goes with a cup of wine,
How many cups to chew through the cold blossoms?
The scholar, poor as a starving mosquito,
Drools till his thin legs are soaked.
Gan River’s sugared plums whiter than jade,
Pair well with blossoms, a fine delicacy.

The frail old scholar salivating over plums looks miserable, yet endearing because of his deep affection for the fruit.

In the Han dynasty, the Chinese concocted salted plums (yanmei, 盐梅), made by harvesting and sun-drying ripe plums, and then preserving them in salt. And if we go by the Book of Documents (《尚书》) that says, “When making broth, one needs salt and plums,” the concoction dates back even further.

It is certain, however, that the Chinese understanding of sour flavours began with salted plums. Han dynasty scholar Kong Anguo also wrote, “Broth must be seasoned with salted plums and vinegar for balance.” This combination of salt and plums to flavour soups has enriched the expressions of taste in Chinese cooking.

Pickling plums will produce plum brine (梅卤, mei lu). During the Southern Song dynasty, people would dip crabmeat in the sweet and sour liquid — a tasty combination. In autumn, small workshops would preserve salted osmanthus and candied osmanthus, often using plum brine to enhance the flavour. The Qing dynasty culinary classic Flavouring of the Pot (《调鼎集》) recorded a recipe for plum brine: “Salted sour plums, long dried under the sun, the juice produced is plum brine, store in porcelain vessels.”

Then there are perilla plums (紫苏梅, zisu mei). Fresh perilla leaves soaked in plum brine are used to wrap individual plums before being steamed in a clay pot. Once cooled, the plums are layered with sugar and stored in porcelain jars, which allows them to be kept for long periods of time.  

Sun dried yellow plums wrapped in fresh rose petals would make rose plums, an elegant sweetmeat; pairing each blanched and dried yellow plum with a rose petal, and soaking them in honey syrup with a few mint leaves would give “wind and rain plums” (fengyu mei, 风雨梅), which the beauties in the TV drama Serenade of Peaceful Joy (清平乐) probably liked.

Across from the Shanghai Zoo is Ashan Restaurant (阿山饭店), which used to serve homemade sour plums to its regulars. Each amber-coloured plum was perfectly balanced between sweet and sour, serving as both an appetiser and a palate cleanser. I have not been back since the owner Shan passed away; I wonder if that old familiar taste is still there.

In Gourmet’s Note (《养小录》) compiled by Gu Zhong, it is written: “The brine from pickled green plums is exquisite. Adding just a little to candied fruits prevents them from spoiling and preserves their vibrant colour. Using it as a substitute for vinegar in vegetable salads enhances the flavour even more.”

That’s right — while Western chefs drizzle balsamic vinaigrette over fresh salads and top them with grated cheese for a refreshing and healthy dish, the Chinese have long been enjoying their own version of this culinary delight.

During the Southern Song dynasty, the people of Hangzhou prepared a special dish to celebrate the Double Ninth Festival: “Perilla leaves lightly soaked in plum brine, mixed with sugar-frosted pears, oranges and tiny pomegranate seeds — this dish is called ‘Spring Orchids and Autumn Chrysanthemums’.”

Wow! Young, aspiring entrepreneurs, do you see? By simply mixing ancient plum brine with iced water, you get the ultimate summer refreshment: perilla plum brine drink. If that’s not enough, try tossing in a handful of diced watermelon, mango, kiwi, pineapple, cantaloupe and cucumber — who knows, you might just go viral!  

During the Yuan dynasty, royal dietitian Hu Sihui recorded a lychee syrup recipe in Dietary Principles (《饮馔正要》, Yinshan Zhengyao). Simply simmer smoked plums with cinnamon, ginger juice, honey and sugar.

He also described a delicately fragrant treat of plum pastilles: “Mix the flesh of smoked and white plums with dried papaya, perilla leaves, licorice and sandalwood. Grind into powder, blend with musk, and shape into sugar-coated pellets the size of a bullet.” These tiny plum-based confections that double as medicine would be difficult to recreate today.

Fellow Yuan dynasty writer Han Yi, in Principles of Gastronomy According to Yi Ya (《易牙遗意》) — Yi Ya 易牙 was a chef for Duke Huan of Qi during the Spring and Autumn Period, who cooked and served his young son to the duke — recorded recipes for crispy sugar-coated plums, honey plums, yellow plum soup and perilla plum soup. These sweet and sour side dishes helped the Mongols with digestion after a heavy meal of mutton and beef, evidence that the Mongols learned a bit of Chinese culture.

Later, people discovered that plum sauce had a more robust flavour, and sometimes used it in place of the lighter plum brine. Today, in hotels and restaurants, Cantonese roast goose, crispy pork belly and roast suckling pig are almost always served with a side of plum sauce to balance out the taste buds.  

In Taicheng, Guangdong province, there is “five-flavoured goose”, seasoned with soy sauce, aged vinegar, rock sugar, rice wine and dried tangerine peel; chefs who are more particular will add their own homemade plum sauce, giving the dish an umami flavour with a touch of ancient culinary charm.

The in-depth exploration of plum blossoms only gets more fascinating. The poet Yang Wanli who asked, “How many cups to chew through the cold blossoms?” declared: “Why need I bother with cooked meals? Just crush plum blossoms and mix with honeyed frost.”

He gathered plum petals, preserved them with sugar or honey for several days, and used them to brew tea, infused them in wine, or kneaded them into dough to make pastries that filled the mouth with fragrance. One poem even revealed his cross-disciplinary experiments: “Boil plucked stamens into porridge; fallen petals still burn sweetly as incense.”

Cooking plum blossom porridge and burning plum blossom incense — today, it could be a video shot at a teahouse in Chaoshan in Hangzhou!

Simple Foods of the Mountain Folk (《山家清供》) by Lin Hong (林洪) of the Southern Song dynasty recorded several plum blossom-based delicacies: plum blossom dumplings, honey-pickled plum blossoms, plum blossom porridge and “plum blossoms blooming in soup”.  

The method for making plum porridge was nearly identical to Yang Wanli’s: “Sweep up fallen plum petals, wash and cook into porridge with snowmelt. Once the porridge is cooked, add the petals and simmer briefly.”  

Take note: the petals had to be added after the porridge was fully cooked, or else their colour would fade and their fragrance dissipate, rendering all the effort in vain.  

It took time to prepare “plum blossoms blooming in soup”. Plum buds collected in winter were sealed in wax and stored in honey jars. In the height of summer, they were taken out and steeped in boiling water. As the wax and honey melted, the blossoms “resurrected” and unfurled as if in spring — a visual and gustatory delight.

Even plum blossom dumplings had an artistic twist. White plums were soaked to extract their juice, which was then mixed with powdered sandalwood and kneaded into dough. The thinly rolled dough was cut with a silver plum blossom-shaped mold, stuffed and folded into wontons to be cooked in chicken broth. Could the famed knife fish dumplings of Jiangnan rival this?

Making honey-pickled plum blossoms was fun: “Peel a bit of white plum flesh and soak in snowmelt. Let plum blossoms ferment in it overnight, then remove and preserve in honey. It pairs beautifully with wine, with a flavour rivalling that of snow-brewed tea.”  

This sweetmeat is a harmonious fusion of fruit and flower, along with snowmelt, frost and honey, best prepared by a delicate hand. With such poetic elegance, it is sour enough to bring tears and sweet enough to break hearts. Who could possibly resist?

In Gourmet’s Note, there is a recipe for a “Dark Fragrance Soup” (暗香汤): “In the twelfth lunar month, pluck half-opened early plum blossoms in the crisp morning air. With stems intact, place them into a porcelain jar. For every ounce of flower, add an equal amount of roasted salt — handle carefully to avoid crushing the petals. Seal tightly with bamboo leaves and thick paper. By summer, place a small amount of honey into a teacup, then add three or four blossoms from the jar. Pour in boiling water, and the flowers will bloom anew, their fragrance utterly enchanting when drunk as tea.”

Step by step, from a winter garden kissed by dawn’s first light to a summer study cooled by a gentle breeze, this scene unfolds like a long cinematic take. Delicate fingers, a soft silhouette and the sound of flowing guqin music — this long take draws one in.  

During the Shaoxing era (the reign of Emperor Gaozong in the Southern Song dynasty), a tavern in Hangzhou became famous for its plum blossom wine. To draw people in, the owner hired a troupe of musicians to perform Plum Blossom Prelude (梅花引), with the wine ladles crafted entirely out of pure silver. Imagine the moment the silver ladles were lifted from the rustic clay wine vats, flashing like lightning!

By the way, you must have read Dream of the Red Chamber? You will recall the scene where the young nun Miaoyu brews tea using “five-year aged plum blossom snowmelt”.

Miaoyu is even more fastidious than the female protagonist Lin Daiyu. Miaoyu is unworldly and has the time, money and inclination for aesthetic living. When making tea, she does not use well water or river water; nor mountain stream water that has been used to wash fish or muddy legs. It has to be “rootless water”, such as rainwater or snowmelt.

And the snowmelt cannot be from “filthy” snow piled up at the corner of a wall — the snow has to be carefully scraped from the plum blossoms at Panxiang Temple during a heavy snowfall. This pristine, fragrant snow is then stored in an old porcelain jar, sealed with wax, and buried underground.

Miaoyu’s use of plum blossom snowmelt to make tea may seem like mere literary embellishment, but if you’ve read miscellanies such as Treatise on Superfluous Things (《长物志》), Eight Discourses on the Art of Living (《遵生八笺》) or Leisure Writings (《闲情偶记》), you would be convinced that there were indeed such refined people and practices during that period.

This article was first published in Lianhe Zaobao as “敬你一杯梅花酒”.

Related: Taiwanese art historian: A plum blossom and a Yuan dynasty painter’s fateful encounter | [Video] The flourishing flower economy in China | Wintersweet scents in Jiangnan